APPENDIX. 167 



Colonel Hawker has left a record of what was in his time con- 

 sidered a good day's sport with Black Grouse in the South of 

 England. He writes : ^ — 



"The best, or at all events one of the best, day's black-game 

 shooting that was ever known, I believe, in these parts [i.e., the 

 borders of Hants and Dorset], I had with the late INIr. John 

 Ponton at Uddens. "We found on this gentleman's manor eleven 

 brace in one day, which was considered by the keepers extra- 

 ordinary success ; and we killed eight brace without missing a 

 shot. But notwithstanding all our birds were as strong and as 

 large as the old ones, we never even saw an old cock the whole 

 day.2 The black game here are briefly called 'poults.' The 

 fagging for them is the hardest labour of any sport I know, 

 because you have to work in the hottest weather through stiff 

 heath, which is so much intercepted by fir plantations and bogs, 

 as for the most part to prevent your riding; and from the very 

 few shots that you are likely to get in a day, you have not the 

 same encouragement as in the abundant sport of grouse-shooting. 

 But, notwithstanding all, I was never so much pleased with any 

 day's sport as with my first day's black-game shooting in Dorset- 

 shire." 



WOODCOCK (page 89). 



The following incident, related by Colonel Hawker in his 

 "Instructions to Young Sportsmen" (ed. 1859, p. 275), as having 

 occurred not only in Dorsetshire, but on the property of the 

 present writer, seems especially appropriate for quotation in a 

 book on the birds of this county. Colonel Hawker observes : — 



"To prove that "Woodcocks, on having migrated into this 

 country, will repair to the same haunts for a succession of winters, 

 I shall mention a circumstance, not as having pilfered it from Mr. 



1 "Instructions to Young Sportsmen,'' ed. 1859, p. 235. 



^ The caxise of the escape of the old cocks was not due so much, 

 perhaps, to their wariness on this occasion, as to their being in the 

 neighbouring woods or plantations. I believe they usually spend the 

 day on the tops of the highest trees, keeping a vigilant eye on what 

 is passing aroimd. During many years' experience, 1 never recollect 

 seeing an old cock on our heaths, only^ grey hens and poults. — 

 J. C. M. P. 



